Last night, I was sewing a pair of simple pants and somehow attached the pocket to the ankle.

I know how to sew, really. There's just something about pockets...

I acquired King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking: Delicious Recipes Using Nutritious Whole Grains cookbook this week.

The recipes in it make me want to stay home all weekend and bake. So far it seems pretty comprehensive as far as information about whole grains and how they bake differently from white flour, which is good. It's also not a diet cookbook - just a book of recipes that use different flours. It was printed in Vermont, too, so Justin approves. ;)

I'm curious to see how this works out, because all I have experience with is the Sparkpeople advice to substitute half wheat, half white flour with regular recipes. This appears to be really tailored to the whole grains instead of ways to make regular recipes healthier.

Right now I have pumpkin bread in the oven. It's a very thick batter, much thicker than the recipe I am used to. It smells good, though!

If my computer hadn't told me the correct time yesterday I would never have known I needed to reset all the other clocks.

Today I am completely wide awake an hour early, despite going to bed at the correctly shifted bedtime. It almost never happens that I am quick to rise on Mondays, but I would have nailed it perfectly today except for the time shift. Instead, I am an hour early.

I made myself some tea and I am putzing around on the internet. It's not so bad being awake and relaxed before the commute instead of sleeping and stressed. I have a lot to do today, anyway, since I will be going out of town tomorrow for work-related class and not return until Thursday night.

I get to drive around a lot for work, and this summer I passed a place with a giant field of sunflowers stretching as far back into the foreground as I could see from the road. They were all in bloom and bright, and it reminded me of postcards and calendar shots I've seen.

Today I drove past it again, and all the sunflowers are brown and withered, their faces pointing downward at forty-five degrees. The effect of them all, dead, stretching away in their rows until framed by the background of red and yellow hills, is a little melancholy, and unlike anything I've seen before.

We have a new TV which works awesome as a monitor for the snazzy computer Adam outfitted for me in February. Oblivion looks awesome in 32" widescreen. The internet is fun from the couch. But I have been wondering if I could actually do work on it from here, or if my computer was turning into a gaming console and Netflix instant viewer. I'm attempting it now, feet up on the trunk, listening to the slightly sappy emo/punk music that Justin objects to. I guess it's not so bad as a work machine when no one else is here. Cool.

So, on a whim I updated my classmates.com bio after they sent me an e-mail a few weeks ago. Since then I have miraculously gotten three signatures in the guestbook there. Of course, this being Classmates, they send you messages to tell you something was posted, but lock everything unless you pay them a fee to see what people sent you.

This is very annoying.

I don't think I'll update that thing again.

Privilege meme

Bold all that are true for you.

Father went to college
Father finished college
Mother went to college
Mother finished college
Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor
Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers
Had more than 50 books in your childhood home
Had more than 500 books in your childhood home
Were read children's books by a parent
Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18
Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18
The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively
Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18
Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs
Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs
Went to a private high school
Went to summer camp
Had a private tutor before you turned 18
Family vacations involved staying at hotels
Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18
Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them
There was original art in your house when you were a child
Had a phone in your room before you turned 18
You and your family lived in a single family house
Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home
You had your own room as a child
Participated in an SAT/ACT prep course (this was through my high school and only cost $20, though)
Had your own TV in your room in High School
Owned a mutual fund or IRA in High School or College
Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16
Went on a cruise with your family
Went on more than one cruise with your family
Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up
You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family

I experimented with making homemade granola. This came out really good the second time I made it. Make sure you don't bake for more than 40 minutes - while it didn't exactly burn, it definitely doesn't taste as good. Also, I added approximately 3/4 cup chopped walnuts, 3/4 cup mixed dried fruit, and 3/4 cup sunflower seeds to the second batch, and it was very tasty.

Ingredients:

4 cups old-fashioned oats (aka rolled oats)
1 1/2 cup sliced almonds
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup honey
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cup raisins or dried cranberries

Directions:

Preheat oven to 300 F. In a bowl mix the oats, almonds, brown sugar, salt and cinnamon. In a saucepan warm the oil and honey. Whisk in vanilla.

Carefully pour the liquid over the oat mixture. Stir gently with a wooden spoon; finish mixing by hand. Spread granola in a 15x10 inch baking pan.

Bake 40 minutes, stirring carefully every 10 minutes. Transfer granola-filled pan to a rack to cool completely. Stir in raisins or cranberries. Seal granola in an airtight container or self-sealing plastic bag. Store at room temperature for 1 week or in the freezer for 3 months.


Taken from: http://www.cdkitchen.com/recipes/recs/146/Homemade_Granola38838.shtml

NaNoWriMo Day 1 - 1,078 words.

Here we go again.

Yay! It's true:

http://www.starcraft2.com

So now I'm a quarter-century old. How about that?

Time does fly.

Hey - we made CNN! (Thanks, stemplehair.)


OSWEGO, New York (AP) -- While the northern Plains and Northeast shiver in dangerously cold temperatures, the folks in upstate New York are keeping warm shoveling snow -- lots of snow.

Since Sunday, the small towns of Parish and Mexico have recorded more than 6 feet of snow, and forecasters with the National Weather Service say it isn't over yet.

Another 2 feet or more of heavy lake-effect snow was expected Thursday for the communities along eastern Lake Ontario, and more squalls are likely through the weekend.

"We're just trying to keep up. It's almost an unreal amount," said Mayor Randy Bateman of Oswego, where 70 inches of snow had fallen by Thursday morning. "We catch up when it stops, but then it just comes again, even heavier."

Five inches per hour

Whiteout conditions -- the snow has been falling at a rate of 5 inches an hour at times -- forced state police to temporarily close Interstate 81 between Central Square and Pulaski, a stretch of about 15 miles.

Travel advisories against unnecessary travel were posted for Oswego and its neighboring counties. Mexico officials renewed a snow emergency declaration, and many government offices were closed.

Schools were closed for a fourth day in Oswego and Mexico.

In West Virginia, where as much as 9 inches of snow has fallen, some schools that had been closed were able to reopen on Thursday, but in most of the state, classes were still delayed, and in a few counties, cancelled. Officials had to call snowplow drivers out of retirement Wednesday to clear the roads.

The weather also disrupted travelers, leaving some stranded overnight in airports in the Midwest after flights to the Northeast were disrupted.

Temperatures in the Northeast were inching back up to something closer to normal for this time of year, but the upper Midwest and northern Plains still awoke to subzero temperatures Thursday -- minus-12 in Minneapolis and 3 below zero in Chicago.

Twenty deaths blamed on cold

The bitter cold and slippery roads have contributed to at least 20 deaths -- five in Ohio, four in Illinois, four in Indiana, two in Kentucky, two in Michigan, and one each in Wisconsin, New York and Maryland, authorities said. Three of them died Tuesday when two SUVs crashed on a slick road in northern Indiana. An autopsy Wednesday determined that an elderly woman found in a New York City building had died of hypothermia.

In Oswego, a big concern was keeping the city's 800 fire hydrants clear, said Fire Chief Ed Geers.

"We're just trying to keep on top of digging out the hydrants. When you get 5 feet of snow in 24 hours, it's tough," Geers said.

Snow will fall at the rate of at least 2 to 3 inches per hour
within the band later this afternoon through Thursday afternoon...
so areas where the band persists will see additional
accumulations by Thursday afternoon of one to three feet...
especially over northern sections. This may bring the five day
storm total to over 100 inches in some spots.


I think I'm starting to get cabin fever.

I really wanted to go to work today. There was only a fresh 6 or 8 inches on the driveway this morning, light powdery stuff, and it wasn't snowing. I shoveled a big patch of snow out of the front of my car, started it, and was cleaning it off when Justin came out to tell my I had a call from my carpool buddy that's we'd be going in late, if at all. I went back to bed. He's the native Oswego guy, so I figured if he didn't want to drive, I didn't want to go without him. At 8:30 he decided not to chance it. That band of snow that went south last night is supposed to double back today.

I looked at pictures online of the campus, showing snow drifts so high that you could just see the tops of the cars in the parking lots. Justin asked if I'd drive him to campus and drop him off. Our neighbor got her car stuck in the driveway trying to get out, so we left late and drove slow. Rt 104 is nasty, and the side roads are worse. There was an accident on 104 right near the turn to the apartment, and the cop redirecting everyone around the scene looked disgusted to see so many people out driving.

I'm really glad I didn't try to go to work, because around 9:45 or 10am it started snowing again. I stopped two places on the way home, for no more than 15 minutes each, and my car was covered. Just with the gap between brushing and getting back into the car, the rear window got so covered I couldn't see to back out. In the driveway, trying to back into my parking spot, I had to stop and brush the back window three times while maneuvering.

My boss is being nice about it. He told me we made the front page of the Post Standard for the snow, and everyone understands, and work is light right now anyway. It's just that I am taking vacation time to stay home, and snow shoveling isn't exactly my idea of a vacation!

This morning I had to push approximately 18 inches of snow drift while opening the door just to get outside. Buying snow pants last week was my saving grace. We had at least 15 inches overnight, and the high drifts are around two feet. I was up to my knees when I walked to the end of the driveway.

I cleaned off my car and Justin came out and helped shovel a path, but before we were done the car was covered again, and the road had at least 4 inches of unplowed snow covering it. Since it's usually worse south of here, we stopped and headed back inside. Since then (about 4 hours ago), there's at least another 6-8 inches on everything we cleaned off. You can't tell we cleaned off all the cars in the driveway and you can barely see the path we shoveled.

I'll have to take more pictures later, but these are from this morning around 6:30am.



( Read more... )

This morning the temperature was around 5 degrees, and blustery as all get out. The news said it was -20 with the wind chill, and all the area schools were delayed or closed for snow and wind chill. I gave myself an extra hour before I was going to leave for work, hoping it'd be better in daylight and with extra plowing time. My fingers and legs about froze off while I snow-brushed the car. When I took off it was hard to see just over the few blocks it took me to get gas, so I gave myself a snow day.

I went into the laundromat at 7:30 this morning, and the desk attendant looked at me like some kind of snow demon. I had my laundry in the car, and when I decided it was too nasty to make it out of town I thought at least I'd get clothes clean. I was the only one in there for the next two hours. The weather was even nastier when I left the laundromat, unfortunately, because the wind had picked up and there was more snow on the ground. I am sure I was driving on the wrong side of the road at least once, and I had my window down the whole way to see. When I was maybe thirty feet from them, cars would magically appear out of the white walls in front of me.

I tried to be talented and carry two laundry baskets at once, one on each hip, when I got back to the apartment. I can only gimp-walk to balance one sliding basket, though, and hips aren't nearly so well-defined with winter coats on. When they both slid off my hip I had to let one slide to the ground in the snow drift, and by the time I came back for it some of my clothes had blown off the top. I have a very snowy bra and some pajama pants hanging up in my bathroom now.

Turned out classes were cancelled on campus today, too, which is an extra indication of how bad it is. I can count on one hand how many times that happened in the four years I was a student there. Today was Justin's last day to clear the paperwork for his independent study, though, and he offered Justin B a ride to work, so he went out anyway and proceded to pop his tire off the rim when he hit a snow-hidden curb.

He had limped the truck into the back of the parking lot, but it was the faculty side, and campus police was unsympathetic. I went out to get him, then came back for the mini-compressor his parents gave him for Christmas when he decided to try to fix it himself, at least enough to move it, since there was no guarantee that campus wouldn't tow it if he left it there overnight. I spent about two hours listening to NPR and watching him fight with the tire from my idling car, then followed him home.

I wish snow days were more fun like when I was a kid, but today wasn't all bad. Justin made breakfast before the trek to campus, and we curled up to watch some more Babylon 5 when we got back. I also had a nice extra hour this morning to eat breakfast and read a good book before I tried to head out to work. I think I'll head back to the book now. I'm really enjoying The Time Traveller's Wife.

In case you ever want to armor a cat or a mouse. Yeah. Uhm. Internet wandering. But they're very cool!

2006 was a good year. Not perfect, but pretty darn good.